I actually like Joe Musgrove. He has some upside. But overall this deal sucks. If you are dealing your best pitcher that still has a very reasonable salary and several years of control you better be getting some high end prospects. The pirates made a retooling trade, and that makes little sense for this team. The window is closed. They aren’t good enough. They won’t go for it and they won’t go full on rebuild. So basically we are in purgatory. Another 75 win season.

_________________Neal Huntington on what he's been told by his bosses about $$$: "We've got assurances we're going to be able to continue to do what we've done."

We'll have someone say that average joe X has some good advanced metric stat numbers where if he does this and that he'll be a great middle reliever and totally worth the trade value! Thus the life of a defender.

In reality, if you want an informed trade opinion, this is Jason Schmidt for ryan vogelsong, Armando rios, and john vander wal.You're losing out on the best piece, boys, because the pirates are too cheap to pay their man and too incompetent/cheap to give him any supporting cast.

This will be another offseason where the pirates are going to have multiple starting pitching spots vacant (about 15+ years rolling; where are all those wonderful pitching prospects I hear so much about?? fortythree? remember? You promised me like 10 years ago!), so get ready for all the 35+ guys, retreads, and long relievers "getting their shot". This happens every year. It's NOT an organizational strategy, it's trying to run a business as cheaply as possible while also not managing to produce any viable pitching prospects despite trade avenues, multiple high draft picks, and international dollars.One is intentional; the other incompetence.

Best owner/management team in baseball.

20+ years of sub .500 ball is on the horizon.

See you later, McCutchen. You were a leaderless prick, but at least you tried. I welcome the 25-year-old busted pitching prospect, the 10th ranked prospect of a team with a poor prospect pool , and a high-priced 26-year-old Ty Wiggington utility player equivalent you'll get the Pirates in return.

I actually like Joe Musgrove. He has some upside. But overall this deal sucks. If you are dealing your best pitcher that still has a very reasonable salary and several years of control you better be getting some high end prospects. The pirates made a retooling trade, and that makes little sense for this team. The window is closed. They aren’t good enough. They won’t go for it and they won’t go full on rebuild. So basically we are in purgatory. Another 75 win season.

High end prospects? High end, defined by whom or what organization?

Just wondering, how often do these “high end” (#1 ranked?) actually get included in deals? I’ve always wondered this ( I choose not to spend my time following the most fucked up sports league in the history of professional sports).

I actually like Joe Musgrove. He has some upside. But overall this deal sucks. If you are dealing your best pitcher that still has a very reasonable salary and several years of control you better be getting some high end prospects. The pirates made a retooling trade, and that makes little sense for this team. The window is closed. They aren’t good enough. They won’t go for it and they won’t go full on rebuild. So basically we are in purgatory. Another 75 win season.

High end prospects? High end, defined by whom or what organization?

Just wondering, how often do these “high end” (#1 ranked?) actually get included in deals? I’ve always wondered this ( I choose not to spend my time following the most fucked up sports league in the history of professional sports).

I consider a high end prospect to be a player that has a concensus top 50 prospect ranking by independent industry services. A top 50 prospect is going to be among an organizations top 3 prospects. There are a not lot of comparables here because pitchers of Cole’s ilk (age, talent, low cost, controllable years) rarely get dealt. Recent examples would be Shelby Miller. Atlanta got Dansby Swanson for him. He was the #1 pick in draft the year prior to being dealt and was considered a top 20 prospect at the time. He has struggled in the majors thus far but he is stil just a 23 year old shortstop. Before that you need to go back 5 years to James Shields. Tampa got Wil Myers for him. Myers was also a top 20 prospect and some even rate him as top 10. Tampa got some other significant pieces in that deal too.

_________________Neal Huntington on what he's been told by his bosses about $$$: "We've got assurances we're going to be able to continue to do what we've done."

We'll have someone say that average joe X has some good advanced metric stat numbers where if he does this and that he'll be a great middle reliever and totally worth the trade value! Thus the life of a defender.

In reality, if you want an informed trade opinion, this is Jason Schmidt for ryan vogelsong, Armando rios, and john vander wal.You're losing out on the best piece, boys, because the pirates are too cheap to pay their man and too incompetent/cheap to give him any supporting cast.

This will be another offseason where the pirates are going to have multiple starting pitching spots vacant (about 15+ years rolling; where are all those wonderful pitching prospects I hear so much about?? fortythree? remember? You promised me like 10 years ago!), so get ready for all the 35+ guys, retreads, and long relievers "getting their shot". This happens every year. It's NOT an organizational strategy, it's trying to run a business as cheaply as possible while also not managing to produce any viable pitching prospects despite trade avenues, multiple high draft picks, and international dollars.One is intentional; the other incompetence.

Best owner/management team in baseball.

20+ years of sub .500 ball is on the horizon.

See you later, McCutchen. You were a leaderless prick, but at least you tried. I welcome the 25-year-old busted pitching prospect, the 10th ranked prospect of a team with a poor prospect pool , and a high-priced 26-year-old Ty Wiggington utility player equivalent you'll get the Pirates in return.

I was foolishly hoping that they would deal Cole and mcuxtcheon and get some relevant and top notch prospect to add to the young guys they do have

The got jack shit in this trade ... not even top ten astros prospects

They seem happy to draft and trade for marginal big league talent that will be cheap. They seem to actually believe they can put together a winner from pieces as opposed to actual top line talent.That or it's Simply nutting marketing 101 ... the constant promise just over the horizon. It's like Bertrand Russell's teapot floating in space

I have done this with them for 45 years now and I can't take it anymore There is nothing left to like about this team except distant memories